1. Field
Embodiments of the invention relate to selection and deselection of objects at multiple levels of a hierarchy.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional horizontal browse controls allow users to access large amounts of data through progressive disclosure in a horizontal, hierarchical manner. The horizontal browse controls are an alternative to the vertical, hierarchical tree displays output by many computer operating systems.
A hierarchical structure or hierarchy may be described as including one or more levels. Each level of the hierarchical structure includes one or more objects. In some hierarchical structures, a top-most object is called a root object, and the root object is the only object that has no parent. An object may have one or more child objects, also referred to as children, and the object is said to be a parent of the child objects. Objects without child objects may be called leaf objects or leaf nodes. The child objects may be objects themselves that have child objects.
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art horizontal browse control provided by an APPLE® operating system OSX available from Apple Computer, Inc. (APPLE is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both). The horizontal browse control works by allowing selection of an object (e.g., a folder, a file, an application, etc.) in a panel, which then opens all the child objects in a panel to its immediate right. In this example, each panel represents a level of the hierarchy. A child object may itself be treated as on object that has further child objects. The user continues selecting objects and child objects until a desired object is found in the hierarchical structure, at which point a summary of the selected object appears in a far right panel. For example, in FIG. 1, the Clipart object 110 has been selected from panel 112, and child objects of the Clipart object 110 are listed in panel 120. From panel 120, the Clip Art object 130 has been selected, and child objects of the Clip Art object 130 are listed in panel 140. From panel 140, the j0150020 object 150 has been selected. There are no child objects for the j0150020 object 150. Therefore, when the j0150020 object 150 is selected, details of the j0150020 object 150 are shown in panel 160.
In such a solution, as the user drills down, the user only sees a single viewpoint into the hierarchical structure. In particular, selection of any object results in selection of all child objects. Additionally, multiple objects may be selected only in one level of the hierarchy at a given time. Thus, there is a need in the art for an improved browse control.